Above: Conservative Party of Canada Leader Andrew Scheer speaks with Sturgeon County candidates and business owners Alanna Hnatiw and Wayne Bokenfohr at a meet-and-greet at Putnam and Lawson Tuesday afternoon. – Lucie Roy Photos

by Lucie Roy
Morinville News Correspondent

A meet and greet with the Honourable Andrew Scheer, P.C., M.P., Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and Dane Lloyd, Conservative Party Candidate for Sturgeon River-Parkland took place Tuesday afternoon under a big white tent in the Putnam & Lawson Parking lot.

More than 60 people, young and old attended the event to hear the two speakers. The event was followed by a roundtable of local business owners.

Conservative candidate Dane Lloyd is representing the party in the federal by-election called for Oct. 23 to fill the seat formerly held by Rona Ambrose.

Lloyd said he wanted to make sure people were aware that there is a by-election happening, and that Election Canada should be sending letters in the mail of when and where to vote.

“In this election I want people to think about what kind of government they want in Ottawa,” Lloyd said. Do they want a government that will raise taxes, carbon taxes, small business taxes, family farm taxes, taxes on employee discounts – or do they want a government that will cut taxes, stand up for pipelines like Energy East and Northern Gateway, and that will stand up for the rights of victims of crimes and their families through sensible policies like the no body-no parole for convicted killers.”

Lloyd said by-elections are important because governments read into the results to give them an idea of what Canadians are thinking of their policies.

“I think Canadians need to send a strong message in this by-election that they are not happy with Justin Trudeau and getting out to vote for the Conservative candidates it will give Justin Trudeau some pause to rethink some of his disastrous policies,” he said.

Party leader Scheer said he was in Morinville and area to support Lloyd, adding he’d heard a lot of issues throughout his meetings Tuesday.

Top of the list for Scheer is the Liberal tax hike on small businesses, the agricultural sector, the latter something Scheer said is making it more difficult to keep the farm in the family.

He also spoke with people involved in the health district and how it is much more difficult to recruit doctors, medical and professionals in rural areas.

The Conservative leader said in speaking with some business owners they feel that they are under attack by the government. Measures the government want to close to small corporations are tax measures businesses have used to save up to expand or to hire workers.

Scheer said the cancellation of Energy East is another devastating blow to our economy.

“I think more and more Canadians are realizing that billions of dollars of investment have left the country because of government policies, whether provincially here in Alberta or nationally, with Justin Trudeau,” Scheer said. “Billions of investment that would have created jobs that would have helped improve our economy, put people back to work has left the country for possibly years to come. because of government decisions.”

Scheer went on to say Energy East is an opportunity to have a national energy vision where Canada could be self-sufficient, and not have to import oil from other countries.

“As a result of Trudeau’s’ policies, it is being cancelled, and foreign oil will continue to flood into Canadian markets because Justin Trudeau failed to get Energy East approved.”

After the meet and greet, Scheer and Lloyd met in the Putnam & Lawson conference room with 10 local business owners to hear local business concerns.

( some numbers just came out from elections Canada as to how many people have voted so far and turnout seems to be low and much lower than 2015 election )

News Releases and Media Advisories

First Estimate of Advance Poll Turnout

Preliminary Figures from Advance Polls in
Federal By-elections Now Available

Gatineau, Tuesday, October 17, 2017
•Preliminary figures indicate that 10,105 electors voted at the advance polls for the by-elections in Lac-Saint-Jean (Quebec) and Sturgeon River–Parkland (Alberta).
•Note that these are preliminary estimates and that not all polls may have reported as yet.
•The table below shows the number of electors who voted in advance in the current by-elections and those who did so in the 42nd general election in 2015.

The constituency of Sturgeon River-Parkland is less than one week away from filling the seat left vacant by former interim Conservative Party leader Rona Ambrose.

The four candidates vying for the seat are Conservative Dane Lloyd, Liberal Brian Gold, Shawna Gawreluck of the NDP and Ernest Chauvet of the Christian Heritage Party.

Gawreluck and Gold were acclaimed for their nominations while Chauveat beat out Parkland County native Kevin Schulthies.

Gold, a 53-year-old professor and business owner said he wants to run to keep Canada strong and free and help foster a strong middle class.

“I want to make sure this economy that is growing the fastest of all the G7 countries keeps growing,” Gold said.

Gawreluck is a medical laboratory technologist works in transfusion medicine and also owns a small business. Gawreluck owns an outdoor construction company with her husband where she does payroll and other paperwork.

“That provides me the opportunity to really speak for small business in Sturgeon County because often our voices get lost in big business,” Gawreluck said.

Chauvet said that he decided to run because of moral issues and his party holds a pro-life stance. Chauvet said he is against the carbon tax and wants to see more of a focus on preventative medicine.

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer made a stop in Morinville on Tuesday Oct. 10 to campaign with Lloyd.

The Sturgeon River-Parkland riding was created in 2011 by combining Edmonton-Spruce Grove, Westlock-St. Paul and Yellowhead. Each of those ridings have been Conservative strongholds with members being elected from the Conservative, Canadian Alliance, Reform and Progressive Conservative parties dating back to 1979.

During the last election incumbent Conservative MP Rona Ambrose earned 70 per cent of the vote.

Two byelections Monday will serve as the first for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, left, and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh as leaders of their respective parties.

The destinies of Canada's two new opposition leaders — Andrew Scheer of the Conservative Party and Jagmeet Singh of the NDP — won't be decided when they face their first electoral tests in two byelections on Monday.

But history suggests that those who see gains in their first trip to the polls as leaders are more likely to make gains nationwide later on when it really counts.

Byelections will be held in the ridings of Sturgeon River–Parkland in Alberta and Lac-Saint-Jean in Quebec to replace retired Conservative MPs Rona Ambrose and Denis Lebel. These are the first to take place since Scheer (on May 27) and Singh (on Oct. 1) were named the leaders of their respective parties.

Sturgeon River–Parkland is a safe Conservative seat. It was won by Ambrose with a margin of 55 percentage points over the Liberal candidate and has long been a stronghold for the party.

Lebel won Lac-Saint-Jean, however, by a margin of just five points over the New Democrats. Along with the Conservatives and the NDP, both the Liberals and Bloc Québécois have hopes of taking the seat.

But having new leaders at the helm of their parties may not improve the odds for the Conservatives or NDP.

In 73 applicable byelections since the beginning of the 20th century, new leaders have boosted their party's performance in a riding over the previous general election by an average of just 1.4 points. The median shift in support has been a loss of 1.3 points.

Though the impact of individual leaders can vary depending on a number of factors, the arrival of a new leader alone does not appear to have any appreciable effect on the result of a byelection. Simply presenting a new face at the head of the party is not enough.

Rare to lose a seat, rare to win one

But new leaders still have a good track record in defending their territory.

When it is one of their party's own seats that is up for grabs, they have retained it 86 per cent of the time. Though the sample size is small — just 22 cases — that is better than incumbents' overall retention rate of 68 per cent in about 300 byelections since 1931.

New leaders have struggled to gain seats in their first byelection tests, doing it just six times in 51 opportunities.

This suggests Singh has history working against him in pulling off an upset in Lac-Saint-Jean. But it also means that a Scheer defeat there would put him in unenviable company.

Robert Manion, the newly-named Conservative leader of the day, saw his party lose the Manitoba riding of Brandon in 1938 before going on to lose the 1940 federal election in such a manner as to give the Liberals their best results in the party's history.

In 1990, Jean Chrétien's Liberals lost Laurier–Sainte-Marie to Gilles Duceppe, who ran as an independent candidate because the Bloc Québécois had yet to be officially registered. Though Chrétien would go on to win three majority governments, the byelection heralded the arrival of the Bloc on the federal scene.

And in 2007, new Liberal leader Stéphane Dion fumbled the ball in Outremont, losing the once-safe Liberal riding to an NDP candidate named Tom Mulcair.

Singh has better examples to follow, including that of David Lewis. In his first byelection test as leader in 1971, the New Democrats wrestled the Ontario riding of Brant away from Pierre Trudeau's Liberals. In the general election held a year later, the Liberals were reduced to a minority government due in part to gains made by the Lewis-led NDP.

Gains now signal gains later

Of the 16 applicable leaders who bumped up their party's average vote share in their first byelections, 10 of them increased their party's vote and seat total nationwide in the next general election. Only three of them led their party to a decrease in votes and seats.

The other three either did not contest a general election or increased their party's vote share, but not its seat haul.

Of the 15 individuals who led their parties to worse results in their first byelections, just four of them increased their party's votes and seats in the next general election. Five of them put up worse performances on both counts, while the others did not contest a general election.

This aligns with trends seen in byelections as a whole.

While the results can fluctuate greatly due to local factors and the candidates on the ballot, parties that make gains in byelections — even though they are held in just a few individual parts of the country — are twice as likely to also make gains nationwide in the next general election than the party that suffers losses.

That national vote is still two years away, but the byelections next week might provide some signals that party leaders, both new and old, can use to assess their political strategies.

Regardless of what the winners and losers make of Monday's results — expect the losers to suggest they don't matter — history seems to confirm what should be obvious: it is better to be the winner.

With less than a week to go before voters in the rural Quebec riding of Lac-Saint-Jean head to the polls to fill the seat left vacant by the departure of Conservative MP Denis Lebel, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to spend the day making the rounds with Liberal candidate Richard Hébert, with an itinerary that includes no fewer than three “community visits” — a mid-morning stop at a local seniors home, followed by back-to-back drop-ins at area restaurants —and an appearance at the annual regional meeting of the Quebec agricultural producers’ union, and wraps up with an...

Voters in the federal riding will head to the polls Monday to replace Ambrose, who announced in May she would resign her seat after the federal Tory leadership race.

Three candidates are joining Gold in that race — Ernest Chauvet with the Christian Heritage Party, New Democrat Shawna Gawreluck and Conservative Dane Lloyd.

The federal byelection is jostling for attention on a crowded Alberta political stage, sandwiched as it is between two provincial conservative leadership races — the PCs last March and the current United Conservative Party leadership battle.

On top of that, a municipal election Oct. 16 clashed with the byelection’s advance polls.

Byelections rarely draw the attention of a full-blown federal race. According to Elections Canada, only about 4,260 people turned out last weekend to cast an early ballot — about one-third of the number who did so in the 2015 election.

Conservative heartland

Historically, Sturgeon River-Parkland is decidedly Tory.

Although it was only created in 2012 — Ambrose was its first MP, winning the seat in 2015 — the areas that make up the riding have leaned Tory for decades.

More than 60 per cent of Sturgeon River-Parkland comprises the old Spruce Grove catchment. Ambrose held that seat for four terms after first being elected in 2004, winning each election by wide margins.

Ambrose left politics to join a Washington-based think-tank and is part of a 13-member NAFTA advisory council created by Trudeau.

Four candidates vying for the federal seat Rona Ambrose left vacant made their case to the community on Thursday night.

The candidates spoke for two hours at the Morinville Cultural Centre at a forum hosted by the Morinville Chamber of Commerce and tackled questions ranging from abortion to North Korea over a two-hour debate.

The forum allowed for each candidate to make their case for why they should be chosen to represent the riding in Ottawa.

Ernest Chauvet, the candidate for the Christian Heritage Party said that he stood out because his party is the only Canadian political party that is officially against abortion. Conservative Candidate Dane Lloyd said that he is personally against abortion but supports his party’s stance and does not want to reopen a debate on the issue.

Shawna Gawreluck representing the NDP and Brian Gold from the Liberal Party both said they supported a woman’s right to abortion. All four candidates agreed that they would like to see abortions decreased through access to contraceptives.

When asked about the carbon tax, the candidates did not come to a consensus. Lloyd and Chauvet both said they opposed the tax because they said it was not an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Gold and Gawreluck both said they support the carbon tax because of the obligation to the Paris Climate Accord and importance of the tax in international relations and business.

“The carbon tax is the most market-friendly solution that is possible,” Gold said.

Candidates were also asked how they would handle the recent increase in rural crime.

Gold said that he would support “no body no parole” legislation that was proposed earlier in the election by Lloyd, which doesn’t grant parole to convicted murderers who don’t reveal the location of their victims’ bodies. Gold also said that dealing with the opioid crisis is an important aspect of dealing with crime. Gawreluck and Chauvet said they would like to address the root causes of crime. Lloyd and Gawreluck said they want to make sure there are enough officers in communities.

“We need to ensure that we put the adequate RCMP resources into our rural communities to ensure that crimes are deterred and dealt with swiftly,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd said that he has big concerns with gas and dash incidents and would support pre-paid gas pumps across Canada and wants to ensure that the Canada-wide RCMP database is well funded and up to date.

Gold had to defend some of the government actions during the debate when asked a question about the ethics commissioner and Gawreluck mentioned that both the Liberals and Conservatives have had issues with the ethics commissioner.

Gawreluck said that she supports a national pharmacare plan because it is cheaper to provide prescription drug coverage than putting sick patients in acute care beds.

“Its one of those things that looks expensive on the front end but saves you money on the back end,” Gawreluck said.

Chauvet said that his party would rather see a focus on preventative medicine and naturopathy to help treat the root of diseases.

The forum had a focus on families and Chauvet said he would like to see money granted to parents to care for their children and aging parents.

“We propose providing income to a parent in a family that would want to stay home and care for children who are under school age, for a physically or mentally handicapped child for a period of time or for an aging parent or grandparent who is not in good health,” Chauvet said.

Gawreluck said that her party supports a national $25 day care plan. Gold said that the Liberals’ childcare benefit has helped 300,000 children out of poverty and his party is committed to a national housing plan.

Lloyd said his party supports bringing back income splitting but said that he believes the best thing that can be done for families is to focus on job creation.

Byelections rarely have the potential for much drama. Monday's vote in the Quebec riding of Lac-Saint-Jean does.

Four parties have the potential to win the seat that former Conservative MP Denis Lebel took by a margin of just five points in 2015. The Conservatives and the New Democrats are contesting the riding with new leaders at the helm in a province that could play an important role for both parties in 2019.

The byelection will also serve as a test of the Liberals' strength in Quebec — a linchpin for them in retaining their majority government in two years.

And for the Bloc Québécois, with a recently installed new leader as well and just two seats short of official party status in the House of Commons, the results might shed some light on its future.

It isn't the only byelection being held on Monday. Voters in the Alberta riding of Sturgeon River–Parkland are also being called to the polls.

Rona Ambrose, who served as the Conservative Party's interim leader until Andrew Scheer was given the permanent job in May, won Sturgeon River–Parkland with 70.2 per cent of the vote in 2015, 55 points ahead of her nearest competitor. The Conservatives are expected to continue their unbroken winning streak in this part of the country, a streak that began in 1958.

Lac-Saint-Jean swung to the Conservatives more recently. Lebel took it from the Bloc in a 2007 byelection and he was subsequently re-elected three times.

But while the Conservatives' vote share in Quebec increased in the 2015 federal election — an increase Scheer would like to repeat in 2019 — Lebel's support dropped to 33.3 per cent. The NDP's Gisèle Dallaire finished a close second with 28.5 per cent, followed by the Liberal and Bloc candidates at 18.4 per cent apiece.

Liberals have slipped in byelections so far

To win the seat away from the Conservatives, however, the other parties will have to improve on their byelection performances so far in this parliamentary session.

Both the Liberals and New Democrats have lost support in five of the six byelections that have been held since the last general election. The Bloc picked up only 0.2 points in its only byelection test in Saint-Laurent. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have slipped in just one.

On average, the Conservatives have picked up 3.7 percentage points in byelections, compared to a drop of 2.6 points for the Liberals and 3.3 points for the NDP. A continuation of those trends on Monday would keep the seat in the Conservatives' hands.

Gains for the Liberals and Bloc in Quebec?

But Lac-Saint-Jean is only the second byelection to occur in Quebec, and it is in a much more competitive setting than the April vote in Saint-Laurent.

Quebec has experienced a big shift in voting intentions since the 2015 election, primarily to the detriment of the NDP.

The CBC Poll Tracker, an aggregation of polling data, puts the party at 15 per cent support in Quebec, down significantly from the 25 per cent the party captured two years ago.

Liberal support has slid from a high of around 43 per cent at the end of the summer, but it is still more than three points above its 2015 election performance at 39 per cent. The Bloc, too, has made gains, up three points from 2015 to 22 per cent.

The Conservatives have lost a little ground, down more than a point to 15 per cent.

If the New Democrats suffer a similar drop in support in Lac-Saint-Jean as they have in Quebec as a whole, that vote will have to go somewhere — and the Liberals and Bloc may be best positioned to scoop it up.

When the candidate matters

The challenge for the NDP — represented again by Dallaire — will be to overcome those negative provincial trends. The NDP will desperately want to turn things around in the province that provided 16 of its 44 MPs in the last election, more than any other province.

Compounding the challenge for the Conservatives and their candidate, Rémy Leclerc, is the loss of Lebel himself.

The departure of an incumbent alone can be expected to cost a party about a 10th of its vote. But when Lebel, a local mayor, ran for the Conservatives in 2007, he boosted the party's support by 23 points over its performance in the riding in the 2006 general election.

The Liberals are following the same playbook that was successful for the Conservatives 10 years ago and are hoping to get the same kind of boost.

Their candidate, Richard Hébert, is the outgoing mayor of Dolbeau-Mistassini — a town larger than Roberval, Lebel's old bastion of strength. Combined with the drop in support for the NDP in Quebec and the departure of Lebel, it puts the Liberals in a strong position.

A visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the riding late last week suggests the Liberals are taking the byelection seriously.

But the Bloc might also prove to be a contender. In Marc Maltais, the Bloc has a candidate with a good profile in the riding. He made a name for himself during a 2012 lockout at Rio Tinto Alcan and has the backing of the union of aluminum workers in Alma, the riding's biggest population centre by far.

Quebec is setting up to be one of the most important battlegrounds in 2019. All four parties are hoping to get the better of their opponents in this first skirmish.

Campaign signs for Conservative candidate Dane Lloyd and Liberal candidate Brian Gold dotted the side of a road in Spruce Grove. Voters in Sturgeon River-Parkland are electing a new MP Monday in the seat formerly held by Rona Ambrose. Ambrose retired from federal politics in June.

Voters are going to the polls Monday to elect a new member of parliament for Sturgeon River-Parkland, formerly held by Rona Ambrose, who left federal politics in June.

Dane Lloyd is running for the Conservatives, Shawna Gawreluck for the NDP, Brian Gold for the Liberals and Ernest Chauvet for the Christian Heritage Party.

Lloyd, 26, is a military reservist who recently worked as a parliamentary assistant for Michael Cooper, the Conservative MP for St. Albert-Edmonton.

Lloyd was not available for an interview with CBC on Friday. At the candidates' forum in Morinville Thursday night, Lloyd said he would push for a law where convicted murderers are made ineligible for parole unless they reveal what they did with their victim's bodies.

He said, if elected, he would continue the Conservatives' battle against the Liberals' small business tax changes.

"They're in retreat and I am not going to quit fighting until we take back all of these business and family farm tax reforms," he said.

Dane Lloyd
Dane Lloyd is running for the Conservative Party of Canada in Sturgeon River-Parkland. (Dane Lloyd Campaign)

Liberal candidate Brian Gold was given a boost Friday when he was joined by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Gold's campaign office in Spruce Grove.

Gold, a businessman and instructor at the University of Alberta, said people he's talked to at the doors are looking for change.

"I feel this too, as an Albertan, I think the Conservative party takes us for granted," he said. "But I also think there's a desire for continuity, meaning they want an experienced voice in government, which is Rona [Ambrose].

"Even though we disagree on many, many issues, that's something that she provided and what I hope to provide also."

'We have voices that actually need to be heard'

Gawreluck, 43, is a medical laboratory technologist who also owns an Edmonton landscaping business with her husband.

Gawreluck is concerned that seniors on a fixed income are not being helped and that lower-rank members of the Canadian military don't make enough to support their families.

She says tax changes proposed by the Liberal government are unfairly targeting small businesses, farmers and doctors.

"We have two political parties that are so busy shouting insults and sound bites at each other that the actual issues that concern Albertans in this riding aren't being heard," she said.

"I think a vote for me sort of says that to Ottawa. That we're tired of politics as usual and that we have voices that actually need to be heard."

With municipal elections taking place across Alberta, Gawreluck acknowledges it has been hard to get people to pay attention.

Brian Gold
Brian Gold, a businessman and instructor at the University of Alberta, is running for the Liberals in Sturgeon River-Parkland. (CBC )

Christian Heritage candidate Chauvet, 66, is running for the second time. He is a former two-term president of Alberta's francophone association and and founder and director of a Catholic bible school.

Chauvet says while his party's fiscal policies are similar to the Conservatives, Christian Heritage is the only party that is explicitly against abortion.

"None of the other parties are willing to do any form of restriction on abortion," he said. "Those are the clientele that we're responding to, that we're representing. And to those that are willing to make that their issue and their vote."

Ambrose, who was first elected in 2004, was the interim Conservative leader from October 2015 until Andrew Scheer was elected leader on May 27.

Ambrose became a visiting Global Fellow on Canada-U.S. trade issues with the Wilson Centre's Canada Institute in Washington, D.C.

The riding west of Edmonton includes Stony Plain, Spruce Grove, Morinville and Redwater.

Overshadowed by this past Monday’s municipal elections, the federal by-election in Sturgeon River-Parkland scheduled for October 23, 2017 could be described as the forgotten by-election. I drove through Sturgeon County and the town of Morinville this week and spotted only a few Conservative, Liberal and Christian Heritage party signs scattered on the sides of the highways alongside the soon-to-be collected municipal election signs.

It was easy to forget that the by-election was evening happening.

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River Parkland
Dane Lloyd

Along with the municipal election, the lack of general interest in the by-election could also be a result of its widely predicted outcome – a landslide victory by Conservative Dane Lloyd.

The district re-elected Conservative MP Rona Ambrose with 70 percent of the vote in 2015. And even though Ambrose’s handpicked successor, Jamie Mozeson, was surprisingly defeated in the party’s nomination race, the outcome will likely be similar, albeit with a much lower voter turnout. This is a reliably Conservative voting area of Alberta and any candidate running under that party’s banner can expect to be easily elected.

Lloyd, a 26-year old political staffer for St. Albert-Edmonton Conservative MP Michael Cooper, earned media attention during the nomination race after calling for a “no body, no parole” law. He has also expressed some very conservative political views online about feminism and firearms.

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer made a campaign stop in the district on October 10, 2017.

His party’s prospects aside, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid a visit to the district on October 20, 2017 to campaign alongside Liberal Party candidate Brian Gold.

Shawna Gawreluck NDP Sturgeon River Parkland
Shawna Gawreluck

At a campaign event in a pizza parlour in Spruce Grove, the district’s largest community, Trudeau told supporters: “I know you’re going to be talking to families and you can talk to them about the fact that the first thing we did was lower taxes for the middle class and raise them for the wealthiest one per cent. You can talk about the fact, as (Gold) said, we approved pipelines that the previous government couldn’t get done.”

Trudeau deserves credit for the visit. The Liberal leader appears to have personally campaigned alongside his party’s candidates in every by-election since becoming leader, including in past by-elections in Calgary, Foothills, Fort McMurray, and Yellowhead.

While New Democratic Party candidate Shawna Gawreluck has not had a visit from her party’s new leader, Jagmeet Singh, she has had the support of Edmonton-Strathcona MP Linda Duncan and Spruce Grove-St. Albert MLA Trevor Horne. Christian Heritage Party candidate Ernest Chauvet also had a visit from his party’s leader, Rod Taylor.

Sturgeon River-Parkland by-election.
Sturgeon River-Parkland

Voting stations will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m on Monday, October, 23, 2017. You can use the Elections Alberta online tool to locate your polling station.

Federal byelection west of Edmonton in Sturgeon River-Parkland underway

By Karen Bartko
Online Journalist Global News

One week after electing new municipal officials, Alberta residents west and northwest of Edmonton will return to the polls to elect a new member of Parliament.

A federal byelection is taking place Monday in the riding of Sturgeon River-Parkland.

Longtime Conservative politician Rona Ambrose was the MP, but announced in July she was stepping down after 13 years. She had served as interim party leader since 2015, after Stephen Harper stepped down and before Andrew Scheer was elected as party leader.

WATCH: Newly named leader of the federal Conservative party Andrew Scheer thanks his predecessors Rona Ambrose and Stephen Harper.

Play Video

Four candidates are running to replace her in the historically conservative riding: Ernest Chauvet with the Christian Heritage Party of Canada, Shawna Gawreluck with the New Democratic Party, Dane Lloyd with the Conservatives, and Brian Gold with the Liberals.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in the area this past weekend to show support for Gold.

Ernest Chauvet is a grandfather who is running on a platform of upholding Christian traditions and is asking residents to vote based on their values. He is pro-life, believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, wants more integration of naturopathic medicine in health care, wants to drop the carbon tax and have no cap and trade, and wants to pay off the national debt like a mortgage.

Shawna Gawreluck is a medical laboratory technologist and co-owns a local construction business. The mother of three is pushing for affordable childcare, supports getting Alberta oil to other markets while also being environmentally responsible.

Dane Lloyd holds a degree in history and political studies from Trinity Western University, a Christian college in B.C., and is a member of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves. He is also a former parliamentary adviser. Lloyd is pushing for “no body, no parole” legislation in Canada, in which convicted killers could not be released unless they reveal where their victim’s remains are.

Brian Gold has a master of arts from Harvard University and a PhD in history from the University of Alberta, where he is an instructor. He also teaches at the MacEwan School of Business. He lives in Spruce Grove with his family. His platform includes growing the economy and middle class, helping local businesses thrive, and building pipelines to get Alberta’s resources to the international market.

READ MORE: Byelections to be held in October in Tory-held ridings in Quebec and Alberta

Polls open at 7:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. Full details can be found on the Elections Canada website.

All eyes are on the federal Lac-St-Jean, where voters are heading to the polls in a hotly contested by-election on Monday.

All four major parties have entered candidates in the riding formerly held by Conservative Denis Lebel and all four candidates have ties to the area.

The riding has also been visited by party leaders in the last two weeks.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the most recent visitor, campaigning in the area on Thursday and Friday. He made stops in Roberval, St-Felicien, Dolbeau-Mistassini and Alma on behalf of candidate Richard Hebert.

Among the pivotal issues in the race is a new softwood lumber agreement with the United States. The riding is home to thousands of jobs in the industry.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum